Sept 16, Thursday

States seen: Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin (new) 

Knowing we had a good 8–9-hour drive ahead of us, we went
and got some breakfast, then headed out the 80 through more farmland to Des
Moines. Well, we didn’t actually go to Des Moines, the interstate skirts north of it, but we saw it from the freeway. 

This pic we took of the landscape (above) looks pretty similar to the Welcome to Iowa sign…

We decided to stop in Iowa City for lunch, or more specifically, Coralville.
Like many of the smaller cities we stopped in, this was a surprising little place- some kind of cool shops and
restaurants. We ate at a place where our waiter looked like one of the Jonas
Brothers (the one married to the Indian actress). Apparently, we were so
excited about Coralville we forgot to take any pictures of it. 

After that we got off the interstates and headed up through
eastern Iowa and more small towns and farmland to Dubuque, 

…where we crossed the
Mississippi river into Wisconsin. 

We went up to Madison where we took the 94
into Milwaukee.

Milwaukee felt like a bigger city than anything we’d been in
since Seattle. Probably because it IS a bigger city than anything we’d been in
since Seattle.

We had the dumb luck of showing up there right as they were
hosting their annual “Summerfest”, a music festival that draws thousands of young
people, and crams up all the hotels. We were at what I was hoping would be a
cool hotel… but my hopes were unfounded. It was not well taken care of.

We walked across the Milwaukee River and went to Lake
Michigan to take some pics, 

then came back and did the Riverwalk. 

This was our
anniversary, so we wanted a nice dinner, but I hadn’t known what was what, or
where to go. We ended up at Mo’s, a Place for Steaks, where they generously got
us in to the last available table. Had a great dinner and celebrated the
anniversary in style. Too bad the hotel was kinda dumpy.